Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)

The Tánaiste will be well aware of the crisis that exists in the farming community as a result of the bad weather. Farmers have been unable to traverse their lands or spread slurry on them. Many of them will take in their cattle for the winter with those tanks still full. I compliment the Ministers for the Environment, Community and Local Government and Agriculture, Food and the Marine, who have already provided an extension in this regard. Is there any proposal on the part of the Government to provide a further extension? Would it be possible for the Government to introduce legislation which would allow farmers to work to prevailing weather conditions rather than to the calendar? As the Tánaiste is aware, that would be a practical and common-sense approach to take to this matter.

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